Father-Son Relationship at Heart of ‘Paradise’

As in his Oscar-nominated “The Children of Heaven,” Iran’s Majid Majidi once again deals with a youngster coping with adversity in “The Color of Paradise.” There is no question Majidi has a way with children, and his rapport with little Mohsen Ramezani is remarkable. Ramezani, who appears to be actually blind or nearly so, plays Mohammad, who fears that he has been left stranded when the special school he attends in Tehran closes for the summer.

While waiting for his father to pick him up, Mohammad reveals an acute hearing that connects him to a universe that fills him with awe. In the wooded area around the school the boy hears the chirp of a baby bird that has fallen from its nest; so in touch with his environment is Mohammad that not only is he able to locate and rescue the tiny creature but climb a tree and return it safely to its nest.

That is a fate Mohammad craves for himself, but it soon becomes clear that there is a part of his tardy father, Hashem (Hossein Mahjub), who wishes that his son would have fallen to his death from that tree. Pleading hardship, Hashem begs the school officials to keep his son over the summer. They refuse and reprimand him for trying to shirk his responsibility as a father.

We learn that Hashem has come, albeit reluctantly, a great distance, for he lives in a forested area in Northern Iran. A coal worker, he does some farming and takes on odd jobs to support his mother (Salime Feizi) and two little daughters, Hanyeh (Elham Sharim) and Bahareh (Farahnaz Safari). Widowed five years, Hashem is about to make an advantageous marriage to an attractive young woman, whose fiance has died and whose father sees Hashem as his only hope for a husband for his daughter. In his loneliness and desperation, Hashem does not want any obstacles in his path to matrimony and clearly sees Mohammad as a potential problem.

Hashem is not unsympathetic, for he is a man in a constant state of guilt and anguish and certainly has a hard life. By contrast, the boy’s sisters and their grandmother embrace Mohammad joyously. Hashem does see a way out in apprenticing the boy to a blind carpenter who lives far enough away to require boarding a bus to visit him. This might actually be a solution, or a part of it, if Hashem had the wisdom, patience and skill to work it out.

But Hashem, who cannot see that his son has been truly touched by the hand of God in his extraordinary rapport with nature and his clear intelligence, wants to be free of Mohammad immediately.

It’s no small irony that “The Color of Paradise” is set in what certainly looks to be an earthly paradise, alive with green fields and thickets of trees, mountains and nearby sea, all bespeaking an unspoiled natural grandeur that Mohammad perceives a great deal more sharply than his father. Majidi is not above resorting to melodramatics reminiscent of D.W. Griffith’s “Way Down East” to bring Hashem to a shattering moment of truth, and the director concludes on a note that also seems straight out of the silent era.

As worthy and moving as “The Color of Paradise” is, it is not entirely free of the manipulative, the arbitrary and the downright punitive. Majidi has talent and skill but lacks the breadth of vision and sophistication of Iran’s greatest directors, such as Abbas Kiorastami or Darius Mehrjui. Yet there’s no denying that in its baldly heart-tugging way, “The Color of Paradise” is a powerful experience.

* MPAA rating: PG, for thematic elements. Times guidelines: The film is too intense for the very young.

‘The Color of Paradise’

Mohsen Ramezani: Mohammad

Hossein Mahjub: Hashem

Salime Feizi: Granny

Elham Sharim: Hanyeh

Farahnaz Safari: Bahareh

A Sony Pictures Classics and Artistic License Films release. Writer-director Majid Majidi. Producer Mehdi Karimi. Executive producers Ali Kalij, Karimi. Cinematographer Mohammad Davoodi. Editor Hassan Hassandoost. Music Alireza Kohandairi. Costumes and sets Asghar Nezhadeimani. In Farsi, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

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